


These Ain't Marvel Comics, Bitch

by TypewriterLove



Series: I S.H.I.E.L.D You Not [1]
Category: Marvel, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Coulson is a BAMF, Darcy draws comics, Gen, Joss Whedon references, Maria Hill is a BAMF, Passing allusions to Thor/Loki, Post Avengers (Movie), Steve is an actual Ken doll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypewriterLove/pseuds/TypewriterLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her defense, Darcy Lewis never intended to become the biggest inner-office comic artist since- </p><p>Okay, so she doesn't actually <i>know</i> any other inner-office comic artists. But the point still stands.</p><p>(In addition to tasering, driving cars in the middle of tornadoes and making a <i>mean</i> pot of coffee, Darcy is also secretly awesome at drawing. Thanks to Agent Hill's badass-ness, she collects some fame for it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Ain't Marvel Comics, Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> Joss Whedon reference AND a reference to one of the best Avengers fics I've ever read, "[How To Royally Fuck Up The Avengers Tower](402337/chapters/663166)". Go read it right now. I won't even be offended, so long as you come to back to this once you're done loving that beautiful piece of literary loveliness.

In her defense, Darcy Lewis never intended to become the biggest inner-office comic artist since- 

 

Okay, so she doesn't actually _know_ any other inner-office comic artists. But the point still stands.

 

I mean yeah, Darcy knows she's a decent enough doodler. She took a semester of art school before working on her Poli-Sci Major and _damn_ , did she ace her classes. She's surprisingly good at drawing motion and animation blurs, and her teacher strongly encouraged her to look into cartoons and Disney movies and all that crap. But save for that one animation of a frazzled looking brunette scientist tucking her hair behind her ear while she types frantically, while poptarts pop out of toasters in the background (the animation loops, too, which Darcy is majorly proud of)- yeah, except for that, Darcy doesn't do animation.  

 

Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D took her on as a glorified paper pusher/Jane's "Caretaker/Assistant/Person to bounce ideas off of at 3 in the morning", Darcy has been drawing nonstop. Nothing impressive, or worthy of showing other people- just little doodles in the margins of papers, or scribbled faces on the bottom of her folders. It's hardly her fault that S.H.I.E.L.D is the best people-watching spot she's ever found, Walmart parking lots notwithstanding. Assassins, international spies and women with crazy high stilettos walk past her desk each day. How is she supposed to resist drawing them? 

 

Coulson, who's behind his desk every day despite the bulge of bandages that shows through his shirt, despairs of her habit of doodling on "important documents". When she scribbled a tiny Thor wielding his hammer (which is _not_ an innuendo- thanks Nathan Fillion) and a giant grin, shouting "FOR POPTARTS" on the super important "Do Not Ask the Celestial Thunder God About His Daddy Issues or Possibly Incestuous Brother" notification, Coulson just looked at her and gave a long sigh, as if wondering what life choices could've possibly led to this moment. 

 

Darcy just grinned and twirled her desk chair. Her mom gave her that look _all_ the time. 

* * *

It's thanks, in part, to her fabulous people watching spot that she begins the comics at all. An absurdly-tiny woman had just skipped past her desk 20 minutes ago, and 19 of those minutes had been spent trying to capture her mind-boggling awesomeness. Where did she even find that maroon cocktail dress in her size? Was it custom made? Darcy was pretty sure the toddlers section in Target didn't sell things like that.

 

Unfortunately, it was way too hard to get the flare of the dress just right. Or the pinched expression of her lips. Or the weirdly willow-y grace to her tiny little arms. She was like a constipated porcelain doll, and Darcy was finding herself more and more aggravated with the drawing until eventually, she made a frustrated growl/huff and scrunched the drawing into a ball, tossing it across her desk and into her basketball net trashcan. "Sometimes I wish I'd paid better attention in life drawing class." she muttered, thumping her forehead against the desk and looking back on her days of art school. It's just- it was so boring! You had to sit there for hours, drawing naked people! And not even _nice_ naked people. Like, not to say the overweight models hadn't been interesting to draw or beautiful in their own ways, but Darcy would've paid _so_ much more attention in class if the models had looked like, say, Captain America. 

 

Darcy snorted against the metal top of her desk, picturing what an absolute riot it would be if Steve Rogers modeled naked. He'd blush and stammer his way through the whole thing, apologizing to all of the students because "I've never really done this before" whilst ducking his head and sending agonized glances to the female students because "Oh gosh I'm corrupting these poor dames."

Did they say dame in the 40's? Note to self, ask Jarvis about that. Or Yahoo! Questions- whichever Darcy has access to first. 

 

The more Darcy thought about Steve modeling for a class, the more she laughed. Until eventually, she nabbed a sheet of printer paper and a mechanical pencil and began doodling, tiny smile on her lips all the while. 

 

The resulting comic, with hand-printed text declaring "Steve Rogers: Professional Model", depicted Captain America modeling for "S.H.I.E.L.D University for The Arts" and standing awkwardly in the middle of a live drawing class, while a beret-wearing Nick Fury barked pose positions in the background. Darcy would much rather read comics than draw them, but she doodled little boxes and speech bubbles nonetheless, and filled some of the color in with a few of her highlighters. Grinning at the work, she signed and dated the bottom corner before slipping it in her desk drawer and, consequentially, forgetting all about it. 

 

That is, until Agent Maria Hill walked up to her desk a few days later and placed the incriminating piece of paper directly in front of her. 

 

Once Darcy got over the shock of seeing _Maria fucking Hill_ down in the no-mans-land that was her desk, Darcy went right back into shock once she registered what was in front of her. Fumbling, she threw her drawer open so hard that it almost flew out of the desk frame but- 

 

There was no comic inside. 

 

Darcy threw wide eyes up at the stoic (goddamit, why did everyone have such good poker faces here?) woman and tried to convey, with her eyebrows alone, how much she did _not_ want to die and how great she thought Maria was and _wow_ did she do something with her hair that morning? Because _damn_ if that wasn't the best bun Darcy had ever seen. After a long moment wherein Hill appeared to be checking her eyes for something (maybe insanity? Because in hindsight, only a mentally unstable person would draw such a thing in the middle of S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters), the woman let the very edges of her lips tilt upwards.

 

Darcy blinked.

Yup. She was definitely mentally unstable.

 

"Ms. Lewis, I need you to copy this file and erase any incriminating markings around the edges. This is an important notice that needs to be posted in the break room message board- unfortunately, the break room is closed for security camera maintenance at this time, and no one is allowed to enter. Except for the repairmen who'll be going on lunch break in about-" Hill checked her super-sleek watch (god, was there anything _not_ badass about this woman?) "well, right about now. See to it that you have the notice up as soon as possible."

 

Darcy kept staring. When Hill raised a brow, she nodded frantically, then watched in awe as the agent turned on her heel and walked away. 

 

"Holy shit." Darcy muttered. And if Hill's shoulders shook for just a second- it was just a sneeze. 

* * *

As per Hill's instructions, Darcy scanned the comic into her computer and digitally erased her signature. But it looked so empty there- so instead, using some anonymous font, she typed "I S.H.I.E.L.D You Not : Episode 1. By PaperPusher"

She printed it off, snuck into the (empty) break room, and tacked it dead-center to the cork board, so Agent Hill would notice it right away and, therefore, not kill her because it looked like she didn't do her job. 

 

Darcy, who was still reeling and utterly confused the next morning on her way in to the building, couldn't help but wonder why Agent Hill had told her to post the comic. What would it accomplish? What was the point? Did Hill have it in for Steve Rogers somehow? Or did she just want to embarrass Darcy? The concept that Agent Hill was trying to get her to share her work because Hill _liked_ it was inconceivable to Darcy- right up until the elevator dinged onto her floor, and the doors parted only to reveal a crowd of people flooding the break room. 

 

Darcy had never been more tempted to flee to lower ground before, not even when she'd climbed that huge tree outside her elementary school, only to fall and break her arm. But S.H.I.E.L.D was S.H.I.E.L.D, and if she didn't get her butt into her office, there'd be hell to pay. Besides, it'd be best to just get it over with- with any luck, they'd slap her on the wrist and tell her not to be an idiot again, before burning the comic and burying her alive with some more files. Sighing and mentally writing her will, Darcy picked out a familiar face in the crowd (a fellow lackey named Kiera) and tapped her on the shoulder. "What's going on?" Darcy asked, trying her best to radiate bewildered innocence. Kiera turned and grinned. "Darcy! Oh you are gonna _love_ this. Someone drew the funniest thing in the break room, and everyone's making copies of it!" 

 

Oh shit, Darcy thought. So much for destroying all evidence, but- "Wait, why are they making copies of it?" 

 

Kiera just looked at her odd. "Because it's a really good comic and it'll probably get taken down soon?" she said slowly. "No one knows who drew it, but the art is amazing."

Darcy just stared at her for a moment, checking to see that yes, Kiera really _was_ being legit here and wasn't bullshitting her or anything, before Darcy elbowed her way into the fray and towards the notice board. 

 

Everyone who could see the comic was grinning. Others were taking cellphone pictures and passing them around to people in the back. The break room was filled with more laughter than that one time Hawkeye had leaked laughing gas into the air vents, and it was all because of something she, Darcy Lewis, paper-pusher and poptart-maker extraordinaire, had drawn.

 

She grinned.

Oh, this was gonna be _good._


End file.
